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Dissed by RFTA on service and bikes

Dear Editor:

In response to Sylvia Cranmer of RFTA, I’d like to say “nice letter.” Yeah, RFTA is great. She forgot to mention that if you are riding between Aspen and Snowmass, the fare is free. Unfortunately, my wife and I live in Woody Creek. RFTA has so much money that they can give service away to people traveling between Aspen and Snowmass, but we have no service between 9:19 a.m. and 5:17 p.m. And during the off-seasons we get zilch! No service at all! If you live close to Highway 82 or in a large bedroom community like Blue Lake or Carbondale, you get lots of service all day long. What do those people pay in taxes? I assume that I pay proportionately the same in taxes as they do and that a portion of that goes to fund RFTA. How come I don’t have access to the same amount of service by RFTA?

I actually used to drive for RFTA some 25 years ago or so. I still know some of the drivers, who are terrific, like Susan who most often drives the Woody Creek bus. But, as you can tell by now, I don’t like how RFTA is run.



The other day I rode my bike into town. On the way home I dropped off my iPod to my wife at work, at the FBO out at the airport (she likes to walk part of the way home with it). Figured I’d take the bus to the Intercept Lot with the bike and ride the bike home from there. I went across the highway to the stop by the bus barn. Got there a good 10 minutes early and waited. Soon another guy got there. First one express bus passed. Then the express to El Jebel stopped. The other guy got on, and I was told that I could not load my bike onto the local, which would soon come, because it wasn’t allowed at that stop!?!?! I got a lot of mumbo jumbo about it being in the paper and legal issues, and that bike loading is only allowed at specific stops. The nearest one is at the ABC, just a few hundred yards away. Boy, was I ticked off!

So nobody at RFTA thought of putting a sign up at the stops that cannot load bikes directing us to the nearest stops that do? If I’d have known, I could have gotten to the ABC stop in time. Yep! They heard from me, all right!




Dan Kinney

Woody Creek